457 – Leo I becomes emperor of the Byzantine Empire
1613 – Michail Romanov, at the age of 16, becomes czar of Russia
1639 – Academie Francaise begins Dictionary of French Language
1792 – Austria and Prussia sign anti-French covenant
1795 – 11th Amendment to Constitution ratified, affirms power of states
1812 – 8.2 earthquake shakes New Madrid, Missouri
1839 – Henry Clay declares in Senate “I had rather be right than president”
1877 – First Guernsey Cattle Club organizes n New York City
1891 – Great Blizzard of 1891 begins in England
1904 – Baltimore catches fire and destroys 1500 buildings in 80 blocks
1914 – Charlie Chaplin debuts “The Tramp” in “Kid Auto Races at Venice”
1915 – First wireless message sent from a moving train to a station received
1928 – First solo England to Australia flight with Bert Hinkler as pilot
1943 – Shoe rationing begins in US (may purchase up to three more pairs in 1942)
1947 – Arabs and Jews reject British proposal to split Palestine
1949 – Joe DiMaggio becomes first $100,000/year baseball player
1950 – Sen Joe McCarthy finds “communists” in US Ministry of Foreign Affairs
1962 – President Kennedy begins blockade of Cuba
1964 – Beatles land at JFK airport, for first US tour and CLICK HERE to see a few minutes of the PRESS CONFERENCE
1965 – US begins regular bombing and strafing of North Vietnam
1984 – Bruce McCandless makes first untethered space walk
1990 – USSR Communist party agrees to allow opposition political parties
1991 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide sworn in as Haiti’s first elected president
2009 – Bushfires in Victoria left 173 dead in the worst natural disaster in Australia’s history.
2013 – Azerbaijan launches its first satellite, Azerspace-1
Birthdays
1589 – Jacob de Witt, Dutch mayor (Dordrecht)/mathematician
1804 – John Deere, Rutland, Vermont, pioneer blacksmith and manufacturer of agricultural equipment who founded Deere & Company
1883 – Eubie Blake, ragtime composer/pianist (Memories of You)
1885 – Sinclair Lewis, novelist/social critic (Main Street, Nobel 1930)
1932 – Gay Talese, author (Honor Thy Father)
weddings
Deaths
1736 – Stephen Gray, English astronomer and scientist (b. 1666)
1938 – Harvey Firestone, American manufacturer, dies at 69
1979 – Josef Mengele, concentration camp doctor, drowns
